The suspects behind the mass shooting at a Jewish celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach—Australia’s worst gun violence in almost three decades—were a father and son, police said on Monday.
The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son is in a critical condition in a hospital.
Forty people, including two police officers, have been injured in the incident, which officials described as a targeted antisemitic attack.
The gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event attended by over 1,000 people in a small park off the beach. People ran screaming, pulling each other into buildings, under tables, and down alleyways, their beach towels, picnic blankets, and flip-flops strewn behind them as they fled.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had called the attack a "dark moment for our nation", visited Bondi Beach on Monday morning.
"What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location," Albanese told reporters.
'Terror angle being probed'
ABC News Australia reported that the investigators were probing possible links to the Islamic State after an ISIS flag was recovered from a vehicle linked to the attackers.
The discovery of the flag has intensified the terrorism angle of the investigation.
Those killed were aged between 10 and 87. One was a Holocaust survivor, the Australian media reported.
“I was just praying to God, 'Please, don't let us die. Please just keep my son safe',” Rebecca, a 33-year-old woman, told the Associated Press. She was with her husband and two children when gunshots erupted.
Bondi local Morgan Gabriel, 27, told Reuters that she had been heading to a nearby cinema when she heard what she first thought were fireworks.
"I sheltered about six or seven. Two of them were actually my close friends, and the rest were just people who were on the street. But people, their phones had been left down the beach, and everyone was just trying to get away," she said.
Australia has been witnessing a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars targeting the Jewish community since the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023.
